Hawaii Five-O: Right Grave - Wrong Body (1974)
Season 7, Episode 6
6/10
This is an enjoyable episode but the script needed to be tightened up...
29 August 2011
Warning: Spoilers
It must be hard producing a one-hour show for TV. I've heard that the hours are grueling and each episode can be like a little movie--and you need to make 26 of them for each season (more or less). So, when little mistakes sneak into a show, I am not at all surprised. However, this one seemed to have more than its share. Fortunately, the basic story is good so you can still enjoy it.

The episode begins with a bunch of graves being excavated. You assume they're being relocated for some reason--but why isn't really important. What IS important is that buried amidst these graves is a body without a coffin--a body that has been there for about five years. The police soon learn the dead man's identity--he's a guy who was involved in a huge robbery where $250,000 was stolen. The police had assumed that he'd gotten away and was enjoying the sweet life. But, the forensics indicate that he was killed soon after the robbery. What happened?! And, what happened to the money? Soon, there are some killings at some liquor store holdups on the island. And, it turns out the gun used in these killings was the one that killed the guy at the beginning of the show. So, Five-O takes all the composite pictures they have of the assailant and canvas the island. One thing is troubling, though, and that it one of the reports--that of a cop from HPD--appears to be deliberately wrong--as if to lead the investigation in the wrong direction. Why? There's a lot more to the episode than this, but I don't want to ruin the suspense.

As I said above, there were a good number of mistakes in this episode. First, Five-O said that the gun that killed the guy at the beginning of the show (the body dumped in the grave) also killed a bank teller during the robbery. That simply is impossible--especially when you learn whose gun killed the man in the grave. Second, when the skeleton is unearthed, they didn't do a very good job of hiding the fact that it was a science classroom or medical school skeleton. Despite the dirt all over it, you can CLEARLY see where the top of the skull was removed to allow students to look inside the skeleton (a standard practice). Are we to believe that the guy was killed and then the assailant sawed off the top of the skull with a precision tool just for the heck of it before dumping the corpse?! Third, when the guy who killed the original corpse comes upon the guy who now has the gun, what are the odds?!?! Also, can $250,000 really be shoved into a standard-sized tool kit??! All of these are legitimate questions that the writer and director SHOULD have worked out before shooting the show.

Overall, enjoyable but filled with more holes than a block of Swiss cheese.
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